


Lay Your Head Down

by ungoodpirate



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, F/M, Post-CDTH, jordeclan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22020949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: “It’s awful, isn’t it?” Jordan said, leaned against the counter top in a curve. “Not being able to do anything to help the people you care about.”Declan jerked off the stove burners with an aggressive they didn’t deserve. “I’m used to it.”----Forty-Eight hours of Declan, Jordan, and Matthew in the Barns post-CDTH and the romantic tension is brewing.
Relationships: Jordan/Declan Lynch
Comments: 12
Kudos: 130





	Lay Your Head Down

Jordan’s fingers lingered on a notch in the hallway wall. A nick in the plaster from Ronan and Declan roughhousing many years younger. Never fixed because the Barns were already a creaky, aged structure, homey and worn with character and being lived in. It was the opposite of Declan’s apartment. The Barns was personal and revealing.

“So this is where you grew up…”

Declan leaned against the kitchen doorway. “Not what you expected?”

“I kind of figured you grew up in a sensory deprivation tank.” Jordan’s fingers dropped. “You know, no details.” 

Declan ducked his head and huffed a breath out his nose. It was the closest he could get to a laugh when he was this exhausted and still wound with tension. When they had arrived, Matthew had immediately tromped up the steps, slammed his bedroom door, and presumably dropped like a log onto his old bed. It was so late it was almost dawn.

“Do you want a drink? There’s tea or… liquor.” 

Jordan stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. She crossed the spare space between them, and when he thought she’d pass him into the kitchen, she didn’t. What she did was clunk her head down onto his shoulder. 

“What I want is to not have to hold up my own head for a bit.” 

The warmth of her forehead seared where it was in contact with his exposed neck. 

It had been a hard day for all, but Jordan had been the one to bear witness to her dream sisters? -- copies? -- being slaughtered. 

Declan slipped his arms around her. 

He was sure she was worried about Hennessy. He was worried about Ronan. He was worried about Matthew, which means he was doubly worried about Ronan. And with Declan worried about Jordan, it meant he was worried about Hennessy too. 

It was too much. Too much. Too much worry to fit within the confines of his rib cage. Too keep under his mask of calm.

In his heart, it pounded:  _ Too much, too much, too much. _

Yet here he was holding Jordan in the hallway of the Barns anyway. 

Declan used to be the master of self-preservation. He wasn’t sure what was happening to him. 

With a deep breath, which Declan felt feather against his shirt, Jordan heaved her head back up. “I’ll take the liquor now.” 

#

Next he sees her in daylight hours she was wearing a plaid shirt she must of found under the premise of ‘make yourself comfortable.’ Declan wasn’t sure if was one of his, abandoned here, or Ronan’s or Matthew’s or Dad’s or some combination through the cycle of hand me downs and familial theft. It was a work shirt for farm chores, so well worn and well washed that the color was faded at the elbows. Jordan had knotted the long tails in the front, leaving a slip of skin over her waistband visible. He had seen more when she bared it wearing corsets and crop tops, but her wearing a shirt that might’ve been his was some other type of tease entirely. 

“You cook.” She snatched a pancake off the tall plate he had already made, folded it in half, and took a bite. Ever since he had awoken from four hours of fretful sleep he hadn’t been able to hold still. 

“You learn to cook when you have little brothers.”

Mouth partially full, Jordan said, “It’s good.”

“There was a mix in the cabinet.”

“Take the compliment, mate.”

Water -- probably from the shower he had overheard running -- was beaded on the curve of her neck. For a moment that was all he could look at, and a moment later he had to look away. 

When he wasn’t looking, he heard her draw in a big breath. “Have you heard from…?”  
Declan touched the edge of his phone in his back pocket, breaking the forty-seven minutes record of self control he had in purposefully ignoring it. 

“No.”

But maybe no news was good news. Jordan was still alive. Matthew -- Declan had checked -- was distracting himself with his old video game console as they spoke. 

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Jordan said, leaned against the counter top in a curve. “Not being able to do anything to help the people you care about.” 

Declan jerked off the stove burners with an aggressive they didn’t deserve. “I’m used to it.”

Jordan said, “Me too.” 

#

Matthew laid two cards face down on the pile in the center of the table. “Two tens,” he said in a way that was so obviously a lie that Declan didn’t have the heart to call him on it. 

When you were playing a game of bluffing and one player was so ridiculously bad at it, you had to give them a handicap. Declan would only call him on it about half the time; it was the nature of being a big brother, used to Matthew as the youngest being the worst at every childhood game he played. He was growing out of that and could probably take Declan on anything from a pick up game of football to soccer to baseball, but ever since Niall died Declan had been the best liar in the family. 

Jordan tapped the edge of her fanned cards on her chin, taking her glorious time. She had been switching between drawn out performance and Vegas dealer-like precision when it came to her turns, with no discernible match between those actions and whether they were truth and lies. 

“They call this game ‘Cheat’ in England,” she had said when Matthew had invited her into the game. “I like ‘Bullshit’ better.” 

She tugged three cards from the middle of her hand. “Three jacks.” 

Last time Jacks had been played it had been by him and Jordan was staring at him like she remembered that very well. Three Jacks. He had claimed he was laying down two, but only had one in his hand. 

The mound of cards under her supposed Jacks was too big to risk getting them in his hand; he would just call out Matthew next time he was lying. Big brothers might’ve given you a handicap but big brothers also liked to win. 

Declan drew cards from his hand and laid them on the pile with a professional confidence. “Two queens.” 

“Bull... shit.” Jordan drew out the swear lie it was a pleasure. 

When the Lynch brothers were kids, Aurora tried to get them to use the nicer named version of this game ‘I Doubt It’ but it didn’t stick. Lynchs liked to sweat too much. 

“No way,” Matthew said, although historically hadn’t been a very good judge of Declan’s lies. 

Jordan flipped over the top two cards. An ace and a three. She shoved the pile of cards toward him. 

“Fuck,” Declan said in a little way and started straighting the pile into a thing that would become his hand. 

He paused when he felt a touch of fingertips to his temple. Jordan’s. Lightly. 

“It’s right here,” she said. “Your tell. Ever since I saw it I can’t unsee it.” 

Declan had a sense that she was talking about well before this game had started. 

Matthew cleared his throat. Jordan withdrew her fingers. Declan continued collecting his cards, gaze held down hard on the table. 

#

  
  


What artifact of circumstances lead them both being in his room -- door merciful open -- Declan couldn’t recall, but Jordan letting her assessing gaze wander the contents felt like digging fingernails into palms -- sharp and living. 

“If television has taught me one thing,” she said, “You’re supposed to tell a lot about a person by their childhood bedroom.”

“This isn’t who I am.” This room was filled with the contents of the child his father wanted him to be: soccer cleats, tin whistle, hot wheels, and -- Declan’s only personal touch -- not a dream thing to be found. 

Jordan tugged out something from a crowded rack of shelves that held more not books than books. What she found was a copy of  _ The Renaissance for Kids _ \-- a book he had checked out from the public library when he was eight and had never returned. It was illicit in more than one way.

She drummed her fingers on the cover as she displayed it like a Price is Right model. “You need a better hiding spot for this one.” 

Declan stepped up to her and took the book from her loose hold. It had been ages since he looked at it -- indeed ages since he thought of it -- but all the pages were well-thumbed. 

He looked from it to Jordan’s eyes -- very brown and very close. 

“I don’t have a childhood bedroom to hide my secrets in,” Jordan said, like it was a fact and a challenge and a regret. 

“They’re overrated.” Because childhood bedrooms were meant to be places left behind. Places outgrown. But Declan had never outgrown his family. He was still shaped by the pain of it. Pain from hating someone so much and pain from loving someone so much were very closely related sensations. 

Jordan hummed, then lifted her eyebrows like a lift of levity. “Like childhood themselves, I assume. I always thought it must be so awful to be so helpless for so long.”

Declan nodded his head as if to concede but only because the truth was too complicated for words. What was he supposed to say: That it was awful. What was he supposed to say: That he was still helpless. What was he supposed to say: That it was sometimes nice when someone else was taking care of you. 

“Brilliant.” Her eyebrows lowered, skin around her eyes growing tight with all the regrets she wasn’t voicing. “Just wanted to make sure.” 

Standing so close to Jordan, so real and complicated, for so long but not touching, he knew he would regret falling for her. The question was how much he would regret stopping himself.

“I’m sure there’s art supplies around the house somewhere if you want to get started on that first original,” he said, then recalling the quality of art supplies usually given to children and how expired they must be, “Well, not good ones.”

She smiled. “Not Tyrian purple.”

He smiled. “No.”

Two smiles in a moment on a fulcrum. Then the downstairs smoke alarm began to wail.

“Everything’s fine!” Matthew’s voice shouted, but the burnt smell reached them a second later. 

Declan stepped back. 

“It’s probably not… Fine, that is.”

Jordan sweept a dramatic arm for his exit. “Off to the rescue. As always.”

Something bloomed in his chest as he left. 

#

“Why don’t you just kiss her?” Matthew said with that exact, blunt, observational clarity he possessed sometimes.

He said this after Declan had assured nothing was on fire or at threat of being on fire. After the scramble like forgotten choreography to open windows and turn on ceiling fans and wave dish towels at the smoke alarm to get it to shut up. It wasn’t the first or twelfth time a Lynch had set one off. 

Declan wrenched the dish towel over a cabinet handle. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Because she’s a dream?”

The question sucked all the air out of the kitchen. Matthew wasn’t devious enough for a trick question, but this was still a perilous one. One where the answer could destroy all the progress Declan had made trying to build Matthew back up that he was a real brother, internal organs or not. 

If he kissed her it didn’t matter what happened after. It would be too late. He would’ve put down concrete proof and his stone heart would’ve been cracked open to reveal all the vulnerable insides. 

He didn’t have it in him to love any girl. He especially didn’t have it in him to love this girl. A girl were heartache was predestined. 

But maybe all love was predestined for heartache. 

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Matthew raised his eyebrows. “That just sounds like an excuse.” 

What is going to tell Matthew? That he’s right. That’s exactly what it is? That everything, every contingency, every layer of protection Declan had so carefully constructed has exploded anyway? 

Declan was running out of excuses. He was running out of excuses except for the most deep and personal: He was scared. 

#

As they closed in on the forty-eight hour mark, Declan sent out a text to Ronan: “Tell me you’re alive.” 

It was asking more than that because obviously he was alive if Matthew was, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t in trouble. 

Almost an hour later he gets a response. “We’re not going to make it to the Barns.” 

Declan immediately tried calling, but his call went to voicemail after the prerequisite number of rings. He sent a series of rapid fire texts, but he didn’t know what he was hoping for. No response came. 

Nothing. There was nothing, nothing, nothing, like a painful beating of his heart as invisible bands noosed tightly around his chest. And he couldn’t breath. He didn’t know the last time he could properly breath. Couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t have to worry. Didn’t remember the last time -- even when surrounded -- that he wasn’t all alone. 

“You alright, mate?” Jordan voice cut through like a doctor’s hands on a stopped heart. 

There she was, hair pulled back into a bun, in one of his old t-shirts, knotted at the waist. There she was, eyes on him, seeing him like this, hand on his arm to steady him.

“Just breath,” she said, like she had had seen something like this before. 

He was so used to doing this alone. It didn’t matter if Ronan hated him as long as he was alive. It didn’t matter if everyone hated him as long as he held the remaining strands of his family together. It didn’t matter if he was alone and empty as long if…

“What do you need?” she asked. She probably meant water or a chair; Or maybe she knew enough that she was actually offering more. 

Declan laid his head on her shoulder. Her hand, chilled at the fingertips, came to curl around the back of his neck. 

He breathed into her shoulder. “I just need to not hold my own head up for a while.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is me sliding in at the last minute to given you a Jordeclan fic before the new year. (I will go down with this ship...)
> 
> If you are unfamiliar with the game Bullshit/Cheat/I Doubt It and want to know more, here you go: https://www.pagat.com/beating/cheat.html
> 
> Check me out on tumblr at ungoodgatsby.tumblr.com or my writer website www.margerybayne.com


End file.
